Didn't We Already Do This? Press Relies On Questionable Stats To Claim Instagram Lost Half Its Users

from the they-didn't dept

Ah, whatever happened to good, old fashioned, fact checking. It was just a few weeks ago that many people were writing about how the press had been confused by data claiming a massive drop in Instagram users following its terms of service kerfuffle. Of course, it later came out that the data from Appdata, was suspect, as it only looked at Instagram usage on Facebook, despite the fact that most Instagram usage is done directly through its app on mobile phones. So here we are a few weeks later... and a bunch of news sources, including Wired, are reporting that Instagram has lost half of its daily users. This is based on data from a different organization, AppStats, but appear to suffer from the exact same flaw: it only looks at app usage on Facebook, which is a minority of Instagram usage. There may or may not be trouble with Instagram usage, but shouldn't the press by now be at least a little skeptical of claims based on dodgy data?

This is logical and quite correct - for those people who think Facebook IS the internet and anything else is just to support Facebook and it's never ending egocentric quest to make everyone be relevant only to themselves.

Re:

It's a simple case of perception becoming fact. Most people do understand this, even if it's only because of bad things that happen to them. If you say that something is on its way out, and nothing obvious disproves that statement, then people believe it. This is especially true when people have an incentive for believing it.

Torture any dataset enough and it'll tell you whatever you want. Since modern 'journalism' has lost its ability to analyze anything critically one just have to do some basic torturing and release it in the wild. There will be few questioning it and it will become the norm.

I have lost all faith in 'factual' reporting. Every time I read about something and start to form an opinion about it, I see a new 'study' that counteracts the first thing I read. There are no facts in the 21st century.